GOLF

GOLF;Forecast Full of Surprises at British Open

By LARRY DORMAN

Published: July 18, 1996

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England, July 17—
Davis Love 3d was squinting through the sun into the distance from the tee at the 10th hole at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, focusing on the distant spire of a church for the best line for his tee shot.

Depending on the wind, this 334-yard, par-4 hole usually demands a precise layup shot with an iron, but today there was no wind, and just for a lark, Love unsheathed his driver and blasted one toward the green.

The ball took off on a high parabola, arcing like a shell from an offshore battleship -- presaging an invasion? -- and took a huge bounce before rolling right onto the green, 12 feet from the hole.

Here we are on the Lancashire coast of Britain on the eve of the 125th British Open Championship and players are driving greens, frolicking about in shirt sleeves, freewheeling it. The sun is shining, the wind is calm and the forecast is for only the mildest sea breezes through the weekend.

What this might portend is a very different sort of British Open, one that could very well produce a surprise winner. In the case at hand, that could mean that 1 of the 44 Americans in the field could become the first United States professional to win the Open at Lytham. Bobby Jones, who won here in 1926, was, of course, an amateur. But now, on a course that has come to be known as an American graveyard, benign conditions might even favor an American.

"You can't really ever predict," Fred Couples said, "but the conditions so far are a lot like we see at home. The difference is that the ground is as hard as this concrete, but without any wind and any rain and as warm as it is, we're not hitting a lot of those British Open-style shots."

The shot that will be most necessary this week will be the straight shot off the tee. Long and straight, like Love's drive on to No. 10, will be even better. But length will not be as critical, with the hard and fast conditions making even the shorter hitters long enough.

"Lytham is an accuracy links," said Nick Faldo, who is the odds-on favorite with the bettors at 8-1. "There are lots of pot bunkers and they are usually placed right within length of the drives. They also are close to the greens. I'm going to need some straight hitting, that's for sure."

One of the surest things about handicapping a golf tournament is that it almost always turns out to be spectacularly wrong. Anyone out there pick Steve Jones before the United States Open? John Daly before last year's British? The winner the last two times the Open was played here was Seve Ballesteros, whose wildness with the driver is legendary.

As usual, he flew in the face of conventional wisdom. The key to his victories: "I was playing very well around the greens, chipping and putting," Ballesteros said. "The greens are small and everyone is going to miss a lot of them. Chipping and putting is the most important thing."

Essentially, Ballesteros blew his driver so far over the trouble, that his bad shots wound up being good. In his first victory here in 1979, he would have been arrested if he were driving a car as erratically as he was driving his golf ball. But he salvaged pars from everywhere and even got up and down from a parking lot adjacent to the 16th hole for birdie.

The rough is slightly higher this year than it was during Ballesteros's second victory here in 1988, and a similar approach to the one he took might not work. This will not prevent Daly -- a very long hitter with a very soft touch around the greens -- from trying it, though.

"I'm planning to use the driver a lot," Daly said. "I feel like the closer I get to these greens, even if I'm in the rough, the better chance I've got."

A Daly victory would be the first successful defense of the Open title since Tom Watson's at Royal Birkdale in 1983. It would also be a hugely popular victory with the Brits, who like his style.

"One thing that makes me feel good about my chances is that I love the way I'm putting," said Daly, who took a putting lesson from Ben Crenshaw during the United States Open.

Crenshaw was watching Daly putt and noticed that Daly's stroke was similar to his own. He suggested that Daly slow down his backswing and improve his acceleration through the ball.

Now, on greens that are only medium fast, Daly is holing putts from all over. Corey Pavin is, too. There is a lot of talk that Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson, if he can keep the ball in the fairway, might be dangerous.

The sun is beating down, the temperature is heating up. It's getting so warm that someone might even decide to go swimming in the cold Irish Sea, which laps at the shoreline about a mile from the golf course. If one didn't know better, one would swear this was a pleasant Miami day in January.

All of which means that this could be the most open of Open Championships. In the last 50 years, this championship has produced only a handful of winners that were huge surprises. To find the last one, you must go back to Bill Rogers in 1981 at Royal St. George's.

It may be time for another. Given the history of the graveyard, littered with the gravestones of great United States champions past, any American could be considered a surprise.